All the good vibes the Lions had about their running game this summer, when they kept Theo Riddick and Ameer Abdullah healthy and had a decent showing in exhibition play, have gone by the wayside just one week into the season.

"It needs work," Lions coach Jim Caldwell said Thursday. "It needs work. We just got to keep working at it and it's not where we want it yet.”

Running backs Abdullah, Riddick and Dwayne Washington finished with just 51 yards rushing on 22 carries, an ugly 2.3-yard-per-carry average that's about 2 yards less than the Lions' goal.

Abdullah, who got the bulk of the carries (15), had a disappointing 30 yards.

"We ran the ball better late in the game than we did early, I thought, and that’s a good sign," Stafford said. "When they knew we were going to try to run it, we were able to run it pretty well, so that was good."

By and large, though, the Lions struggled to stay in positive down and distance situations, a combination of some poor blocking up front and missed opportunities by their backs.

Of their 25 first-down plays in non-two-minute-drive situations, the Lions ran the ball 19 times for just 41 yards. Six of those rushes resulted in carries of negative or no yards.

“I think we did churn up some (yards) there at the end of the game, and, obviously, that’s the important part of the game when you need to seal things out and not turn the ball back over to them, eat up some clock at the same time," Caldwell said. "But it’s still not quite where we want it."

This week, the Lions face an even tougher assignment against a Giants team that tied for third in the NFL in rush defense last year.

The Giants have one of the best defensive lines in the league, with Jason Pierre-Paul and Olivier Vernon at end and the run-stuffing Damon Harrison at tackle, and they've allowed just two backs — Le'Veon Bell and Ezekiel Elliott (twice) — to top 100 yards rushing since the start of last season.

"(They're) big and strong up front. They do a really good job of setting the edges on you, force things back inside to big people that can move. They are a talented group," Caldwell said. "And then they got a linebacking corps, because of the fact that you have to pay particular attention to making certain that you seal those big down linemen, they got linebackers that run free and make tackles in your backfield if you let them. So they are very difficult."

The Lions, playing without Abdullah and Riddick, managed just 56 yards rushing in a loss to the Giants last December. If they can't do better Monday, they could be in for another long night.

"We're just not satisfied yet," Caldwell said. "But we’re going to continue to work at it. We got to continue to get better."